Keeping

I once wrote a story about a magenta horse running across a frozen lake I had it die I liked the image: frantic limbs, a spear The horse crumpling the ice with its lifelessness

When I screamed at my brother, his nine years scrunched up into his red face His monkey-like appearance was so striking That I decided to keep his suffering His tragedy could unfurl into a story someday

A girl dipped into her grandmother’s sorrows won a competition with them spread out on a platter I consider asking my mother for her sorrows she is well acquainted with the gutter of life but I don’t want to see her open Or, in another word, broken

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